Amateur-modelled commerce
Capitalism has been getting a bad reputation since Karl Marx published his book Das Kapital or as Neo-Tech put it:
The dictionary definition of capitalism is: An economic system characterized by private ownership of capital goods and by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control. Prices, production and distribution of goods are determined by a free market.
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But most writers and commentators put dishonest altruistic-platonistic connotations on the meaning of capitalism: A system of exploitation of the weak by the strong -- devoid of love and good will. A system in which unwanted goods and services are pushed onto consumers through clever, deceptive advertising for the sole purpose of profits and greed. Capitalism dominates most Western governments. Capitalism, big business, and fascism are synonymous.
I am no longer a libertarian purist, but I still think Capitalism and liberalism are the best economic system and political system respectively.
That put aside, here are some thoughts about a more amateur take on commerce that we can consider:
I once attended an Israeli LiveJournal-ers meetup (back when LiveJournal was more popular outside Russia) which took place in a vegetarian Indian restaurant. That restaurant allowed one to eat as much as they want from the buffet and pay as much (or as little) as they want.
Now, I ate some of the food there which was pretty good, and decided to pay 70 ILS. This is whereas I recall that, at the time, a hamburger meal at a decent restaurant costed between 40 ILS and 50 ILS. Why did I pay so much? Because I appreciated their trust and felt generous.
Creators of digital media (or "content") may opt to initially release their works under relatively restrictive licences such as Creative Commons CC-by-nc-sa or the Affero GPL, and sell commercial or proprietary exceptions to the licence. Alternatively, they can ask for money to put it under a less restrictive licence such as CC-by, the MIT licence, or even CC0 / public domain.
I have been doing software development commissions where I give a rough estimate of the time it will take me by multiplying my estimate by 3 and charge 50 USD / hour (which is a good rate in Israel) and I do not charge if the customer is unhappy with my deliverables. This is because I'd rather be considered a "sucker" than acquire a new enemy.
Note that the deliverables of a recent commission were made open source by permission of the customer, because although he paid me to work on some change he needed, he was also happy to share it with the world at large.
Some people online lamented the fact that some Grammy Award-winning artists had to use Patreon (or similar) donation pledges to sponsor their albums, but it is quite similar to most philosophers of ancient times, who were entertainers who collected donations from the attendees after their performances.
Counterintuitively, charging more may yield a bigger demand:
And, in fact, you can’t even be sure that the demand curve is downward sloping.
The only reason we assumed that the demand curve is downward sloping is that we assumed things like “if Freddy is willing to buy a pair of sneakers for $130, he is certainly willing to buy those same sneakers for $20.” Right? Ha! Not if Freddy is an American teenager! American teenagers would not be caught dead in $20 sneakers. It’s, like, um, the death penalty? if you are wearing sneakers? that only cost $20 a pair? in school?
I’m not joking around here: prices send signals. Movies in my town cost, I think, $11. Criminy. There used to be a movie theatre that had movies for $3. Did anyone go there? I DON’T THINK SO. It’s obviously just a dumping ground for lousy movies. Somebody is now at the bottom of the East River with $20.00 cement sneakers because they dared to tell the consumer which movies the industry thought were lousy.
In the book The Princess Bride, there is the story of a swords' craftsman, whose secret better craftsman delegator was killed, and who charged more and more for his now pretty bad results. However, the more he charged, the greater the demand was.
Faith: well, "living on the streets" is kind-of a stretch. See: I took Peter the mafio's advice and collected money from people in exchange for stand-up comedy/philosophy sessions and earned my keeps this way. Just for the record, being original is a Big Mistake; I crossoverred stuff all over the place.
( Quote from "Buffy - a Few Good Slayers" . )
For more insights, see: